#21: Chocolate Sundae Cupcakes

In September of 2009, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven't read about it yet, you can do so here. ***

Today is my cousin Zoe's birthday. For my entire life, she's been one of my very best friends. Since she lives in Seattle and I can't be there to bake her a birthday cake, this blog post will have to do.

I love you, Stinky!! Happy 28th!!! Try to imagine these cupcakes on the screen are real...just for you!!

12single

Let me say this up front: these cupcakes were WAY fussier than anything I would normally make. But, since we're pretending these are for Zoe's birthday, they were well worth the fuss. :)

The first step was to put a vanilla bean in some milk and boil it just slightly, then let it cool for a while.

01nillabean

While the 'cooling' was happening, I got to work creaming the butter and sugar.

02sugarbutter

Next, the recipe said to split the vanilla bean and scrape out its insides.

03beanguts

That's vanilla, not pepper. :)

04beanmilk

Dry ingredients were combined with the butter and sugar.

05adddry

And the vanilla milk was added to make mashed potatoes!! (only kidding).

06batter

While the batter was baking inside it's cute little papers, I was boiling a cocoa/sugar syrup for the icing.

07syrup

Once it reached the appropriate temperature, the syrup was removed from the heat, placed in a pan of cool water and whipped with a hand-held mixer. (Are you seeing the fussiness yet?)

08coldwater

The result:

09icing

So I had these lovely cupcakes with no topping:

10baked

And I dressed them up with some cooked chocolate fussy-pants icing and some chopped peanuts.

11iced

In all, they were really cute and pretty tasty...but they were sure a lot of work. There has GOT to be an easier way to make chocolate icing!

#35: Cuba Libre Cupcakes

#29: Chocolate Malted Milk Shake Cupcakes

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